‘Alpha of the Plough’ thought the Victorians understood Christmas and New Year better than we do.
Writing in full knowledge of the horrors of the Great War, columnist Alfred Gardiner found early twentieth-century sneering towards the past a little hard to bear. The kind of progress we had made, he said, had not given us that right, and it was particularly grating to hear the moderns scorn their grandparents’ idea of how to keep Christmas and New Year.
Toby ‘Trotty’ Veck used to love hearing the church bells ring the New Year in, but now the chimes make him feel guilty, and afraid for the world.
It is New Year’s Eve, but old Toby ‘Trotty’ Veck, a hard-up widower, is not celebrating. Alderman Cute has got him so worked up about a sustainable economy, food injustice and industrialisation that Trotty despairs for future generations if things carry on as they are. Even the church bells seem to toll the death knell of Victorian England. But that night, the spirits of the bells rise up to demand an apology.
Sir Kay has left his sword at home, and his young brother Arthur is determined to find him a worthy blade for the New Year’s Day joust.
Sir Kay has no sword for the New Year’s Day joust, but his younger brother Arthur knows that on Christmas Day, within the Great Church of London, a marvellous sword was found struck deep through an anvil into the stone beneath. He decides Kay must have it, unaware of the prophecy written in gold about the sword: Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.
For Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Christmas was a time to let the dead past bury its dead.
The death of Tennyson’s close friend Arthur Henry Hallam left familiar Christmas Eve customs such as the holly and the music and the dancing full of sad memories for him. He responded positively, however, embracing the deeper message of Christmas Day: a new beginning, a New Year.